I learned something about agriculture and growing fig trees today. I was curious why Jesus was so upset with the fig tree when he saw that it had leaves, but then, upon looking closer, he found that the tree wasn’t bearing any fruit.

Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

Mark 11:13-14

What I learned today is that when a fig tree has leaves, it should also be in the process of growing fruit. On the other hand, if it isn’t the season for figs, you shouldn’t see leaves on the fig tree either.

So what was the problem in this case, with this fig tree? The problem wasn’t necessarily that the tree wasn’t producing fruit. The problem moreso was that the tree was producing leaves, making it look as if it should be producing fruit, and yet there was no fruit to be found. It had the right look for producing fruit, yet no fruit was being produced.

In Jesus’s time, this may have been a representation the spiritual situation, the spiritual context in which Jesus found himself with the nation of Israel. They were supposedly God’s people. They were supposedly serving him, yet they didn’t obey him. They were proud. They didn’t truly want God, they wanted the benefits of being God’s people without actually knowing God or living according to his commands, in relationship with him.

In short, like the fig tree, they were producing all of the leaves, and yet they were producing no fruit.

The fig tree represented the nation of Israel.

We see the evidence of this, in fact, interspersed with the story of the fig tree. Immediately after Jesus initially encounters the fig tree, he enters into Jerusalem and overturns the money changing tables and of those who were selling sacrifices. The temple, the place where Jesus does this, was intended to be a holy place. A place of prayer. A place where sacrifices would be offered. A place where God would be worshiped and glorified. The majority of the activity, though, was actually commercial. People were more concerned about making money in that space than they were in being near to God.

The temple looked like it would be a place that would serve God – like the fig tree, it had all of the leaves – but it was producing no fruit. It was not serving God. It was not necessarily a place to worship God. It was serving man. It was giving to man a way to vend religious goods and services.

A second example, after Jesus and the disciples pass by the fig tree a second time and find it shriveled up, is the question related to John’s baptism. The Pharisees had come to Jesus, asking him by what authority he had been doing the things that he had been doing. Who told him that he could go and overturn the tables of the money changers? Who told him that he could upset the business of those who were selling the sacrifices?

Even in these leaders coming to Jesus to ask this question, we see the example of the fruitless fig tree. They were the religious leaders of the people of Israel, not Jesus, and they wanted to exercise their authority over Jesus and the religious systems of Israel. But if they were truly producing fruit, they should have recognized that what Jesus had done was from God. Jesus’s actions should have caused them to sit and cry out in repentance, not come to judge him and ask him by whose authority he had been acting within the courtyards of the temple.

But Jesus pushes it even one step further. He asks them a question: Was John’s baptism from God or from man?

They don’t know.

And yet they should have known. They should have recognized John’s call to repentance as being directly from God. They should have been the first in line, repenting of their sins.

But the truth was that they didn’t understand the ways of God. They couldn’t understand the ways of God. It wasn’t possible for them to do so because they were spiritually blind. They were spiritually deaf. Their hearts were hard and incapable of understanding that the call to repentance was for the entire nation. Not just some people. All of the people.

These Pharisees, though, were like the fig tree. They had the right look on the outside, they had all of the “leaves” that made them look correctly, but they were not producing fruit.

I think it is important to know that the example of the fig tree may not only represent the nation of Israel. It was a warning to them, but it is also a warning to us. God’s people should all heed the warning of the fig tree. Are we looking right on the outside? Are we producing leaves so that we simply look like we are producing fruit? Do we look like a healthy follower of Christ without producing the fruit of Christ within us or through us?

We need to be sure to learn the lesson and heed the warning of the fig tree. We cannot fool God. He will look for the fruit, and he will either find it or he will not. Will we be a people that will bear fruit? Or will we simply be a people who are producing nothing but leaves?